Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsOverhyped, over engineered camera with poor PC compability/support
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2019
I've been using the Garmin VIRB 360 for the last year or so, so I'm basing this review on what I know is possible with a 360° camera and the technical difficulties that are faced. That being said, let's dig right into it.
First and foremost, stitching and stabilization are the biggest selling points behind any action 360° camera. Some cameras stitch video real time, others store the individual video files and do it with a computer. The MAX is a little of both. Video is stored in a single file using GoPro's new .360 file format, which contains several "tracks" inside of it. Without going into great detail, only four are worth discussing. Two are the video tracks, one is the audio, and the fourth is all the GPS/sensor data. To get a stabilized video to upload to the internet/share with friends, you need to use either the mobile (Android/iOS) or desktop (Mac/PC) apps, which brings me to my criticism of this device.
GoPro has caught on to the fact that people generally don't like to watch 360° video and is trying to make the editing workflows more straightforward. Unfortunately, their product launch is riddled with bugs on the PC software side of things and they haven't been very upfront about this. If you search through the documentation and on the internet hard enough, you'll find that the "GoPro Player" hasn't been released for Windows yet and the "MAX Exporter" will only export to the CineForm codec, which results in humongous files that are difficult to work with.
There's no library management, no support for overlaying sensor data on to video, no support for archiving recorded video for long-term use, and exporting video to CineForm results in a stabilized 360° with no GPMF (GPS/sensor) data, so you can't use third-party software to take advantage of the sensor data the camera records.
While the hardware and technical achievements in this camera are impressive, it's next to do anything with on other than a Mac right now. Even then there are better, less difficult to use alternatives out there for a comparable price point.
